Based on the improvement of display resolution and display density, it is possible to render the detail of drawing objects in a 3D graphics window. Accordingly, a typical display resolution is 100 pixels per inch, however a high resolution display has a resolution as high as 200 pixels per inch. In so doing, it is possible to provide fine detail in images. For example, the detail of light reflection on high resolution display can be shown, which can avoid the illusion made by Gouraud shading. On the other hand, the usage of a high resolution display causes usability problems when the icons in the 2D graphics window are not properly scaled. To illustrate this problem in more detail refer now to FIG. 1. FIG. 1 illustrates a CAD application 10 in which the blueprint of a car 12 is shown in conjunction with a toolbar 14 on the display.
In this example, the user can access the detail of the blueprint of a car 12 in the 3D graphics window using the high-resolution display. On the other hand, the icon and text in the toolbar 14 is rendered too small to manipulate. This is because the software application is designed to be able to zoom and pan freely in the 3D graphics windows but the same software specifies the text height of the menu font by, pixel count in 2D graphics window. In so doing, the software makes the physical size of the fonts too small to be manipulated.
In order to resolve this problem, the software has to specify the size of objects, by physical dimension such as mm, not by pixel count. Microsoft Windows or OpenGL, which are Widely used today, do not specify the physical dimension. Accordingly, the design of the software would have to change to specify the all GUI related objects, which is not practical or cost effective solution.
Accordingly, what is needed is a system and method for allowing high-resolution display to provide both a 3D graphics window at its highest resolution while allowing icons or fonts on a 2D graphics window on the same display to be manipulatable without changing the design of standard software applications. The present invention addresses such a need.